The twilight of the Iranian revolution?
Isolated and dysfunctional, Iran’s Islamic Republic had reached a dead end. “The regime has lost all popular support, and yet it is incapable of change,” a leading dissident tells the… Read more »
Category: Dissidents
Release Saudi women’s rights advocates on 2nd anniversary of arrests, say NGOs
Today marks two years since Loujain al-Hathloul (below), a prominent human rights activist in Saudi Arabia, was arrested and detained for trying to “destabilize the kingdom” with her fight… Read more »
Russia: Pandemic tests Putin’s grip on power
Whereas Mikhail Gorbachev granted his people freedom and suffered a crushing personal defeat, Vladimir Putin is doing exactly the opposite, says a leading analyst. Putin, whose greatest fear is pressure… Read more »
As coronavirus threatens legitimacy, China targets victims and critics
The Chinese authorities are clamping down as grieving relatives, along with activists, press the ruling Communist Party for an accounting of what went wrong in Wuhan, where the coronavirus killed… Read more »
Why China’s propaganda efforts backfire
A journalist who had worked for some of China’s most powerful propaganda outlets has been jailed for 15 years after being accused of attacking the ruling Communist Party, AFP reports:… Read more »
‘From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate’: Have Liu Xiaobo’s fears been realized?
Liberal Senator @SenPaterson says China’s threat to impose “economic sanctions” on Australia if it conducts an independent inquiry into the source of the coronavirus shows the Chinese Communist Party is “extremely… Read more »
Inside Wuhan: China’s struggle to control the virus — and the narrative
Hao Jun, in his late forties, is one of a small but tight-knit group of dissidents based in Wuhan who took it upon themselves to document the earliest days of… Read more »
Call to free Iran’s women political prisoners: Virus ‘exacerbates regime’s legitimacy crisis’
The coronavirus is leading Iranians to question the relationship between state and religion, putting the theocratic state in “an unusual and awkward position“, observers suggest. The Islamic Republic had to… Read more »
CCP rule by fear endangers Chinese citizens – and the world
As China tames the coronavirus epidemic now ravaging other countries, its success is giving rise to an increasingly strident blend of patriotism, nationalism and xenophobia, at a pitch many say… Read more »
‘Democracy’s Defenders’ offered beacon of hope to dissidents
It is almost 30 years since the demise of Encounter, the London-based monthly review of culture and politics, but no other magazine has since come close to matching its influence, Gerald Frost writes for… Read more »